Speaking out against Corporate Exploitation

Upon monday, I am set to deliver a speech in my class about the exploitation of corporate entities.

If you folks wouldn't mind, I'd like to share that speech with you all.

On every dollar in America are the words, “In God We Trust”. Funny, a prayer on the root of all evil. These days, there’s a different almighty.
A strange creation, larger than the sum of its parts. The Corporation is what rules us, binds us. They’ve bought our politicians and convinced
them that corporations are legally people. They’re rich in resources that they’ve cheated the locals of. There is blood on their hands that
won’t wash off.

There is a corporation that’s scrubbed itself nearly clean, however. You can go into any store in America and buy its products. The Coca Cola
corporation, as American as apple pie and napalm. It astounds me how completely Coke has integrated itself into the culture. A patent medicine
invented by a junkie ends up as the most popular beverage of all time. Well, the Coke business is sordid indeed. How do you feel about unions? Do you
believe they deserve to die? Well, Coke did. In 1993, there were over a thousand unionized workers working for Coke in Columbia. In 2004, there were
less than four hundred. You know what happened? A campaign of extrajudicial violence against union leaders.

In 1996 and 97, two union leaders named Adolfo Munera, and Isidro Gil both turned up dead with a serious case of lead poisoning. Gil was shot by
“paramilitaries” right at the entrance to the factory. Munera, who had filed a lawsuit against the company, they tracked to his mother’s home,
and shot in cold blood. Coca Cola denied any involvement or wrong doing in either death. It was all the paramilitaries! Not Coke, they could never do
anything like that..

There’s something rotten in Denmark when a corporation’s enemies start dropping dead. The Coca Cola company isn’t the only one guilty of such
crimes, either. Anyone fill up their car at Shell?
Well, Shell had a thorn in it’s side from a man named Ken Saro-Wiwa. You see, Ken loved his homeland. He didn’t care to see it polluted by oil
companies that took everything and gave nothing back. So he arranged a group of likeminded folks and staged a non-violent protest. He began to draw
the attention of the corporate machine, however. So, with a few bribed officials, he and his movement were arrested.

He wound up facing a kangaroo court, and he and eight others went to the gallows for their grievous crime of protesting a huge corporation. In 2009,
the Shell oil company would later pay a settlement of 15 million dollars to the families of the victims. Comparatively, they made 31 billion dollars
in profits that year. That’s less than .004% of what they earned. Such generosity. There’s no amount of money that you can pay to bring someone
back from the dead. Murder is set in stone, irreversible. If a corporation is legally a person, Shell ought to be tried for it’s many crimes.

There’s a certain mindset that just disregards atrocities if they don’t happen here. That the problems of non-Americans are not our problem. When
the news gives absolutely no air time to these sorts of things, people forget. Well, I don’t forget. The amorality of the market place has given
way to monstrous entities that have no qualms breaking a few skulls to make an omelet. I’ve only addressed the tip of the iceberg in regards to the
legacy of greed and exploitation that goes on from the corporate machine.

What can we do against so much power and money though? We can stop ignoring the 600 pound gorilla in the corner. Folks are bickering over which side
of the stars and stripes they stand for, when the whole flag is on fire. The root of all evil has given way to a tree with poisonous fruit. We need
to join together, and resist the divide and conquer tactics they use to manipulate the public. If we don’t, the future looks very bleak indeed.

I know it's a complex issue. I only have 5 to 6 minutes allotted for the speech, however. If I had a greater length of time, I would have addressed
the government-corporate connection in more depth. I said a little bit about it, but I wanted to stay on track and on schedule.

Did it ring true? Was it any good? I wrote what I believe in, but I worry sometimes about if I'm just biased towards myself.

I know it's a complex issue. I only have 5 to 6 minutes allotted for the speech, however. If I had a greater length of time, I would have addressed
the government-corporate connection in more depth. I said a little bit about it, but I wanted to stay on track and on schedule.

Did it ring true? Was it any good? I wrote what I believe in, but I worry sometimes about if I'm just biased towards myself.

With that time constraint,

Yes, you are right on.

And, never worry about being 'biased towards yourself'.

You'll get plenty of accusations from others saying you are biased against them !!

For the love of god don't. We need to keep this grounded in reality. Sure, it'd be great if Alien Jesus showed up and solved all our problems, but
there's no such thing, and even if he was real, it'd probably be some sort of bogus deal where he bursts through your ribcage for the lord.

In the real world, these swine are getting away with it. Someone's got to talk about it. Income inequity in America is insane. Look at Denmark, or
Sweden. Those are civilized countries. Well, maybe. Grass is always greener on the other side. But America's becoming savage. They're dropping the
pretense. What the corporate machine has done to South America, they'll do to North America. Don't think we folks in the U.S.A. are immune to it.

For the love of god don't. We need to keep this grounded in reality. Sure, it'd be great if Alien Jesus showed up and solved all our problems, but
there's no such thing, and even if he was real, it'd probably be some sort of bogus deal where he bursts through your ribcage for the lord.

In the real world, these swine are getting away with it. Someone's got to talk about it. Income inequity in America is insane. Look at Denmark, or
Sweden. Those are civilized countries. Well, maybe. Grass is always greener on the other side. But America's becoming savage. They're dropping the
pretense. What the corporate machine has done to South America, they'll do to North America. Don't think we folks in the U.S.A. are immune to it.

For someone so smart you're not so smart, there's more evidence there was a Jesus of Nazareth than there is that you exist, and I could prove UFO
contact using the bible alone?

If you took a look you'd see corporations were envisioned in the bible and that Jesus would return(in his normal form, God) when they have full
control

Throwing in my $0.02 (I'll bill you later). I thought your speech was good. I think that, after focusing on both the Coca Cola and Shell incidents,
however, that you could insert a statement or two that brings it more to the broader picture. You could easily do this with a battering ram of
examples and bring it right on home so that they can see it's what they touch, drink, eat, and wear. Make it palpable.

ie: "Nike, Nestle, Hanes and more accused of child labor practices and more. Who owns a cell phone? Do you even know if the parts in it were
manufactured by Foxconn a company also well known for its employees committing suicide?"

Broaden it out and hit them hard. Staccato those examples out so that it's not one product or two but a wide variety of products that they may be
using, wearing, or have eaten in recent past.

P.S. And a really very evil idea. If you can use a powerpoint, list out all the subsidiaries and connections (will be harder for Shell--they are not
forthcoming on this) to show how inescapable that gorilla is. As a tip though, if you can do this, Shell has joint ventures with Chevron and Texaco.

Well, it didn't go too well. I guess I missed the mark, or something. Perhaps I said something that folks didn't much like, or was too bleak.

Better to have tried, and spoken about something meaningful than not. The class clown got a ton of laughs, and was probably the better speech though.
Poor choice of audience for a heartfelt speech about corporate exploitation. Maybe I ought to start writing about like, ultimate frisbee, or hallmark
cards.

Eh, could have gone worse, but I was hoping for a better response. Still, the blame is entirely mine. I should have written for the crowd.

I'm sorry to hear that and you're absolutely right. It is far better to speak than to say nothing at all. I think the problem is that people tend
to be somewhat vested in various corporate entities similar to like people supporting one football team over the other (think Pepsi drinkers v. Coke
drinkers). People rarely want to connect that their actions are somehow linked to an injustice, let alone to the morally abhorrent. This kind of
"brand loyalty" is precisely what corporations aim to foster via their marketing strategies (I've taken marketing and aced it--I also think it's
fairly vile but I do know what I'm talking about.). It is not any different than the students at Penn State who rioted after Joe Paterno was fired
for being fully aware of Sandusky's child molestation activities. If Paterno had simply been a professor, riots would have been unlikely and
societal approbation of his behavior would be more likely. It's amazing what loyalty to a brand or a sports team will forgive and it's a known
psychological phenomena that has been studied i.e. diehard Apple products users having the same areas of the brain light up as a religious fanatic.

We presume that human beings are masters of their own thinking in the idea of "free will". However, the truth is that human beings tend to be, more
likely than not, highly subject to psychological manipulation. It is the tragedy of it all so that the "class clown" gets all the laughs and
positive feedback, while the speaker of apparent truth gets all the revile. One makes them comfortable, the other triggers self defensive
responses--even when they are not truly defending themselves but a brand, a corporation, a basketball star, a football coach, or an entire team.
It's the tragedy of humanity in that it is so frequently blind-sided.

I've got another speech coming up. But I don't think I'll keep to the same topic this time. While it was a heart felt attempt at getting through to
people, this crowd doesn't want that.

I wish I could think of a persuasive topic without talking above my audience, or talking down to them. It's so hard to have a meaningful speech. I
guess I could just load up on buzzwords and talk quite a bit without saying much at all.

The problem is finding a topic that's worthy of talking about, and at the same time, the average man can do something about it. The problem of
political corruption is far too big. I'm in a quandary here, but I've been in worse. I just don't want to sell out my core values though.

I'd personally avoid "buzzwords" as those tend to have a lot of weighted meaning associated with them. Buzzwords tend to work like a mental lock
or key, depending on which side of the aisle the listener prefers. Just my $0.02. Heck you could always do a speech on the use of buzzwords in
politics.

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